1,720,964 research outputs found
Acupuncture for Fibromyalgia: An Open-Label Pragmatic Study on Effects on Disease Severity, Neuropathic Pain Features, and Pain Catastrophizing
No full textThe treatment of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is still far from being optimally coded, and pharmacological strategies are often unsatisfactory. Acupuncture plays a role among nonpharmacological intervention approaches; however, there is still no clarity as to when to integrate it into therapy. The objective of this study is to explore the role of acupuncture, in terms of efficacy on main disease severity measures and pain features, in patients with nonresponsive disease, defining nonresponsive FMS characterized by a revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ-R) ≥39 and a Patient Health Questionnaire 15-item (PHQ15) ≥5 despite optimal drug therapy. Patients were treated with weekly sessions, for a total of eight acupuncture sessions. At the baseline and at the end of the treatment cycle, a comprehensive clinical evaluation was carried out to evaluate improvements in terms of disease severity and impact on neuropathic pain features (measured with the painDETECT questionnaire (PDQ)) and pain catastrophizing (measured with the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS)). At the end of the eight-week treatment, patients experienced a significant improvement in all evaluated parameters (for FIQ-R, PDQ, and PHQ15 p<0.0001, for PCS p=0.001). Of particular note is the effectiveness on manifestations that are difficult to treat such as neuropathic pain features and on negative psychological perceptions such as pain catastrophizing. It can be stated that acupuncture can be proposed also in phases of high severity of disease. Intervention with multimodal strategies, including acupuncture, could be of great benefit to patients
AB1065 Preliminary findings of a 2-months acupuncture intervention on symptomatology and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia
No full textRosuvastatin decreases serum inflammatory markers and slows atherosclerosis progression rate in treated HIV-infected patients with metabolic syndrome.
No full textObjectives: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is usually associated in general population with systemic inflammation and higher cardiovascular risk, but data about the effect of statins in patients with HIV infection and MetS are lacking to date.
Methods: Prospective cohort study of treated HIV-infected patients, aged from 40 to 60 years, with or without MetS, who started rosuvastatin (10 mg daily), and were followed-up for 12 months. The primary endpoint was change in serum levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). The secondary endpoint was change in the carotid intima-media thickness (IMT).
Results: One hundred and twenty-five patients were enrolled: 61 with MetS (MetS group) and 64 without MetS (control group). After 12 months, rosuvastatin produced a significant decrease in mean serum levels of hsCRP (-0.28 mg/dL; p = .037), IL-6 (-2.1 pg/mL; p = .018) and TNF-α (-6.3 pg/mL; p = .004) in patients with MetS. On the contrary, in controls rosuvastatin did not lead to a significant change in mean levels of all biomarkers. After 12 months, the mean IMT increase at the carotid bifurcation was significantly lower in the MetS group than in the control group at the carotid bifurcation (0.017 vs. 0.031 mm; p = .037) and in all other anatomical sites.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that rosuvastatin is effective in reducing serum inflammation markers and slowing atherosclerosis progression rate in HIV-infected patients on cART and with MetS, while its effects on serum biomarkers and IMT increase seem to be negligible in those without MetS
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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